Marion True lives within her means

How about this strange blog post from NYTer Sharon Waxman?

Background: Waxman is writing a book about "the world of museums and antiquities and where those antiquities belong." It will be published in about 18 months by Times Books, a partnership between Henry Holt and the NYT. From time to time Waxman has been blogging about the book-writing process.

Last week Waxman blogged about Marion True, the former Getty antiquities curator on trial in Italy on charges that she conspired with dealers who were trafficking in looted antiquities. Waxman's post is a surprising, strange woe-is-True lament, full of treacly passages such as:

It is a tragic tale, however you slice it: either the insidious corruption of a Harvard-educated, lover of history by the prevailing norms of a see-no-evil antiquities trade. Or the public crucifixion of a competent curator who played by the rules -- and the rules lived in a grey zone -- and then found herself in the cross-hairs when the rules changed to black and white.

Except that's not true. True played outside the rules, as the LA Times Pulitzer-finalist tag-team of Jason Felch and Ralph Frammolino reported on Oct. 3, 2005:

The curator of antiquities for the J. Paul Getty Museum bought a vacation home in the Greek islands after one of the museum's main suppliers of ancient art introduced her to a lawyer who arranged a nearly $400,000 loan.

The Getty said in a statement Saturday evening that the curator, Marion True, had resigned after museum officials confronted her about the loan, which she obtained in 1995.

The statement, released in response to questions from The Times, said the loan breached museum policy, which requires employees to report even the appearance of a conflict of interest.

And that wasn't all: On Nov. 17, 2005 the F&F boys reported that True had received a second ethically problematic loan: $400K from Lawrence and Barbara Fleischman just after the Getty had paid $20 million for part of the Fleischmans' collection in 1996. (The Fleischmans donated the rest of their collection to the Getty. Barbara Fleischman joined the Getty's board four years later.):

By repaying the first loan with money borrowed from the Fleischmans around the time of the Getty's transaction with the collectors, True created an even greater conflict, members of the Getty Trust Board of Trustees and outside ethics experts said Wednesday.

The Getty's conflict-of-interest rules bar employees from borrowing money from any "individual or firm with whom the trust does business of any kind."

"Of course we think it's a conflict," said John Biggs, chairman of the Getty board. "I think everybody's uncomfortable with it, but we're not sure where to go from here." ...

Neither Fleischman nor True disclosed the loan in annual conflict-of-interest statements, according to Getty trustee Ray Cortines, who as chairman of the board's audit committee checked the disclosure forms after learning of the loan.

Waxman may feel True's pain all she likes, but she's factually incorrect. True broke the rules. Repeatedly. No "grey zone" there.

Related: Felch and Frammolino are also writing a book about antiquities and museums. (Guess which one I'll read first?)

Waxman is one of a handful of NYTers who blogs away from nytimes.com. Others include Jennifer 8. Lee, David F. Gallagher, and Joyce Cohen.

The headline of this post refers to this NYT headline mistake.